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Well, they are staring us in the face, for the first cliche - I know it so well, I know it like the back of my hand - is an Austalian cliche, and - I know it so well, I know it inside out - is an American cliche.

And so we have our archetypes. The first archetype is an Australian, and the second is an American. Yes, an Australian or an American is an archetype.

Well - I know it so well, I know it like the back of my hand - is a visual cliche, for we look at the back of our hand. So the Australian archetype is visual.

While - I know it so well, I know it inside out - is an kinetic cliche, a cliche of the proprioceptive sense, a cliche we find externally in dance and internally in visceral feeling. So the American archetype is kinetic. We see this in American Jazz and dance, and we see it in American felt authenticity.

So what is the relationship between the Australian archetype and the American archetype?

So we have the visual Australian archetype looking at the American archetype; and we have the American archetype moving around and inside the Australian archetype.

And it is the sheer energy of the American archetype that first strikes the Australian archetype, and then it is the demand for visceral authenticity that next strikes the Australian archetype; while the American archetype can't quite see what the Australian archetype is looking at.

This always reminds me...how often DO people look at the back of their hands?

'One of (Lucas) Cranach's masterpieces, discussed by (Joseph) Koerner, is in it's self-referentiality the perfect expression of left-hemisphere emptiness and a precursor of post-modernism. There is no longer anything to point to beyond, nothing Other, so it points pointlessly to itself.' - Iain McGilChrist

Suppose a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?"
"Suppose it didn't," said Pooh, after careful thought.
Piglet was comforted by this.
- A.A. Milne.

Strine and Fancy

Of course there are other archetypes and cliches. For instance the Russian cliche is - I know it so well, I know it like the palm of my hand - and this is a tactile cliche. And so the Russian archetype is tactile, an archetype of touch.

The Japanese cliche is - I know it so well, I know it from top to bottom, from the top of the head to the soles of the feet. And so the Japanese cliche is one of interval, a cliche of space between, very much a Zen cliche. So the Japanese archetype is one of the empty space between.

The German cliche is - I know it so well, I know it like the inside of my pocket - I am baffled by this cliche as one might expect from a visual Australian archetype, but still it fascinates me, possibly because I can't see inside my pocket. And gosh, I wonder what is the German archetype doing inside their pocket - it is hidden from me.

No wonder the archetypes don't understand one another. And no wonder we try to get the other archetypes to perceive the world as we do.

Of course the Australian archetype believes everyone is born speaking Strine, but then learn a foreign language. But some tell me this is fanciful.

Not all about me

What could be more appropriate on Typology Central than to discuss Archetypes. Archetypes are of course just another type.

But Archetypes are not personal types. Archetypes are not about the individual. Archetypes are not about me. So after all, I discover it is not all about me.

And I discover the very language I use is not all about me - for I speak in cliches - words that have been in millions of mouths.

When I first joined Central, I didn't speak in cliches but I wasn't understood, and I found the only way I could be understood was to speak in cliches. So once again I discovered it is not all about me.

Not wanting to be a sock

I'm an American and I've heard "know it like the back of my hand" more than "know it inside out".

Just a curiosity.

You know what will happen if you persist with your curiosity - you will ruin my argument.

Of course you might like to talk to your confessor or even your therapist to find out why, when you know something so well, you don't, like all good Americans, know it inside out. Perhaps you have a phobia of turning things inside out - perhaps you feel panic when you see someone turning a sock inside out - perhaps you feel a sense of vertigo on the very thought of turning yourself inside out like a sock. I am not a sock, you will tell your therapist, I am a person. Of course, says your therapist, this is a perfectly normal feeling, not wanting to be a sock, and indeed we call it sock phobia.